The Family We Make

by Dan Wingreen

  “Ugh.” Connor made a harsh gagging noise. “Relationships are stupid.”

  “They’re not all bad,” Tim said, his words threaded with amusement. At Connor’s skeptical expression he laughed. “You’ll see one day.”

  Connor glanced away. For several minutes he said nothing. Then, just as Tim was about to get worried, Connor asked quietly, “Was being with him better than being alone?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Connor glanced up. “Do you still wish you were with him?”

  Tim swallowed heavily. “Sometimes,” he said softly.

  Connor nodded slowly as if he’d expected Tim’s answer. “You’re alone now though.”

  “Yep,” Tim said. “I’m alone now.”

  They fell silent then. Connor studying Tim with a piercing gaze that had no place on a fourteen-year-old boy, and Tim trying not to squirm as he felt like every decision he’d ever made was being silently judged.

  “Okay,” Connor said. “We can be friends.”

  Tim tilted his head and smiled, though he wasn’t quite sure if he was more pleased or relieved. “Just like that?”

  Connor shrugged and glanced away self-consciously. “Yeah? We don’t need, like, a contract to sign in blood or anything, do we?”

  Tim snorted. “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Yeah, okay. So…yeah. I mean, you don’t have to. If you changed your mind or whatever, that’s fine…”

  “I didn’t change my mind,” Tim said. “I’d still very much like to be friends with you.”

  “Cool.” Connor lowered his head, but not before Tim could see another small flush starting to spread across his cheeks and nose. “So, what now?”

  Tim leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “Whatever you want.”

  Connor let out a tiny, frustrated growl. “I already told you I don’t have friends. I have no idea what they do together.”

  “You have to have at least seen people doing stuff with their friends though, right?” Tim asked. “Stuff you maybe wanted to do but never had anyone to do it with?”

  “I’m only ever around my dad and people at school,” Connor said, staring up at him flatly. “That kinda limits our options to bitching about students or talking about how cool it was to get drunk and throw up last weekend.”

  Tim laughed. “Then we’re kind of screwed. Neither one of us have students, and center policy forbids me from encouraging underage drinking.”

  “Good. Drunks are stupid.”

  “I suppose we’ll just have to settle for having a conversation.”

  “About what? You’re like twenty years older than me.”

  Ouch.

  Tim could have pointed out that they’d already been having a conversation, but instead he smiled. He might have been more outgoing at fourteen than Connor seemed to be, but he was introverted enough to have a pretty good idea of how Connor liked to spend his free time.

  “Do you like to read?”

  Connor’s whole face lit up.

  *

  Of all the things Spencer might have expected to see when he came back two hours later, Tim and his son furiously discussing The Silmarillion wasn’t even on the list.

  “It’s not even a real novel! It’s a textbook, and I read enough of those in college. If I’m gonna read something for fun, it needs to actually be fun to read.”

  “But it explains the entire Lord of the Rings backstory! You’re missing out on so much by ignoring it.” Connor vibrated in his seat. “And it’s not a textbook. It’s a collection of short stories and poems.”

  “It’s a textbook,” Tim said flatly.

  “No, it’s not!”

  “Well, it sure reads like one.”

  “You have no appreciation for classic literature!”

  “Classic literature? It’s a handbook for nerds. I might as well read a Dungeons and Dragons rulebook.”

  “Agh! You’re such a…a…a uncultured basic bitch!”

  “Woah! Hey!” Spencer rushed over, not really sure which one of them he should be glaring at. “What the hell’s going on here?”

  “Oh, hey, Dad.” Connor mood switched from barely contained indignation to mild surprise so fast it nearly gave Spencer whiplash. “Has it been two hours already?”

  “Yes,” Spencer said slowly.

  “Huh. Doesn’t seem like it.”

  “I guess time flies when you’re fighting with the guy who’s supposed to be looking out for you.” Spencer had meant to be stern and fatherly, but he was pretty sure he sounded as confused as he felt.

  “We’re not fighting,” Connor said, his voice thick with unvarnished teenage exasperation. “We’re having a conversation.”

  “You called him a bitch.”

  “A very passionate conversation.” Connor flashed small grin. “And I called him a basic bitch; it’s totally different.”

  “He’s right,” Tim said. “About the conversation, at least. We weren’t really fighting. It was actually a lot of fun.”

  “See? We weren’t fighting. Even though we totally could have been because Tim has a really shitty taste in books.”

  “Connor!” Spencer snapped.

  “Oh, come on, Dad. He thinks Jurassic Park is better than Sphere.”

  Tim threw up his hands. “Jurassic Park is a classic.”

  “So is Sphere!”

  “I’ve always kind of liked State of Fear,” Spencer put in, before quickly shaking his head. He was here to pick up his kid, not debate Michael Crichton’s entire library. Even if the setting was incredibly appropriate. “Never mind. Are you ready to go?”

  Connor nodded. “Yep.” He pushed himself out of his chair. “Bye, Tim!”

  “See you around, Connor,” Tim said with a wave and a smile. Without another word Connor started walking away, leaving a bemused Spencer behind.

  “He’s a good kid,” Tim said.

  “I know.” If there was one thing Spencer never doubted, it was Connor’s inherent amazingness. “And, uh, you got him talking. Which is impressive, even if he was calling you names… I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

  Tim smiled. “I’m a big boy, Mr. Kent. I’ve been called worse things.”

  Spencer winced but accepted the barb he probably deserved. So much for letting it go though.

  “You should probably go catch up with him before he gets lost.”

  Spencer felt strangely disappointed by the obvious dismissal. “Right. Well. It was…nice meeting you.”

  It was a bit of childish spitefulness, ending his farewell with a pleasantry instead of a nice neutral “goodbye,” but he wanted to put Tim on the spot and maybe make him sweat about how to respond. Would he lie and return the sentiment or struggle to find a polite way to avoid returning it without completely shutting him down? The moment the words were out of his mouth, however, he lost his spite and his courage. Instead of waiting for a response, Spencer turned on his heel and took off after Connor. The kid hadn’t gone too far past the doorway, so he jogged lightly to catch up with him.

  “So…” Spencer said after nearly a minute of silently walking through the halls of the youth center. “How was it?”

  Connor shrugged. “Fine, I guess.”

  Spencer sighed silently. He’d been more than shocked to see Tim and Connor interacting at all, let alone having a literary debate. He still wasn’t entirely sure they hadn’t been fighting, but he’d hoped the fact they’d been talking was a sign Connor might be enjoying himself. Maybe even enough to keep coming voluntarily. Spencer and Tim might have gotten off on the wrongest foot in the history of wrong feet, but the man seemed good for Connor. Spencer would have happily suffered through the inevitable awkwardness and strained conversation of potential future meetings if it meant keeping his son outside his shell.

  “Well, I’m proud of you for trying,” he said, trying not to sound too dejected. “I promise you don’t have to do this again.”

  “Are you kidding?” Connor said inc
redulously. “He still thinks The Silmarillion sucks. I’m coming back tomorrow.”

  Chapter Six

  October was easily Spencer’s favorite month. The temperature finally began cooling down, layers were once again weather appropriate, everything everywhere was done up with awesome Halloween decorations, and it was far enough into the school year for Spencer to start bringing out the good assignments; the ones that made the kids think and actually had a chance at being fun to grade. This October, however, was particularly great, and Spencer had to lay a lot of that at the feet of Big Brother Tim.

  It wouldn’t be completely accurate to say Connor had blossomed these past few weeks since he started making regular visits to the center, but Spencer would have had to be blind not to notice the changes. His kid smiled more outside the house. He laughed along with the rest of the class without worrying about being so loud he drew attention to himself. He even raised his hand a few times to answer questions completely unprompted.

  That terrified Spencer every time it happened because he knew how much courage it took for someone as shy as Connor to draw attention to themselves, and he dreaded having to tell his raisin he was wrong in front of the entire class. Thankfully, Connor hadn’t been wrong yet, but Spencer was nothing if not pessimistic about the future.

  Connor wasn’t a totally changed boy though. He still refused to eat in the cafeteria, still refused to tell Spencer who was bullying him, still refused to admit whether or not he was still being bullied, and he hadn’t made any friends at school. But that was okay. Because he had Tim now, and Spencer never thought he’d be so grateful for someone who was nosing around the edges of their little two-person family. Connor was improving in ways he never would have been able to with just Spencer in his life, and while he could have easily started to resent Tim, he was happy enough to share his son with anyone who put a smile on his face.

  Although, if Spencer had to hear another sentence that started with “Yeah, but Tim said…,” he might actually scream.

  No, scratch that. I’m gonna scream if this goddamn box of Lucky Charms doesn’t slide one inch closer to the edge of this shelf right fucking now.

  Shopping day had come again, and since Spencer actually remembered to go this week, that meant he had to jump back into the never-ending battle against the idiot shelf stockers who put everything he needed on the top shelves. Which normally wasn’t that bad since he’d had decades to get used to being this short. He could usually manage to balance on the rails of his shopping cart to get those extra few inches he needed. But this time, some self-absorbed mouth-breathing shopper had pushed the entire row of Lucky Charms a half foot back from the edge of the shelf, and no amount of stretching or contorting could get him close enough to even graze his fingers against the box. The cheerfully proclaimed 20% More in Every Box! written across the very top—the only part of the damn thing he could actually see—mocked him as the cheap paper pumpkins hanging from the ceiling watched his efforts with morbid fascination.

  “I’m going to get you,” he muttered between clenched teeth. He jumped, again, slamming his hand down on the empty space in front of the box after missing completely and barely grabbing the edge of the shelf before he could fall over. “I’m not leaving without you. So, you can just give up right now and tip over because if I have to ask for one of those old people can grabbers, I’m gonna come back here and burn this place to the fucking grou—”

  “Do…you need some help?”

  Spencer flinched and spun around, a few words about threats toward cereal not being legally actionable and, really, no one needs to call the cops or anything like that on the tip of his tongue, and found himself staring face-to-face with Tim.

  Great.

  He hadn’t actually seen Tim since that first disastrous meeting. Shame and embarrassment had kept him firmly on the street side of the doors on the days he’d been home to walk Connor to the center—something that always got a very expressive teenage scoff from the kid. So, of course he’d run into him when he was tired and flustered and swearing at breakfast foods. Because the universe apparently likes to take “he can’t possibly have a worse impression of me” as a challenge.

  At least Tim seemed just as surprised to see him as Spencer.

  “Oh,” Tim said. “Hi.”

  Spencer couldn’t read his tone, but he figured there would be a very quick “Oh, I need to be somewhere else now” regardless.

  “Hey,” he said back, fighting the urge to self-consciously rub the back of his head.

  They stared at each other in silence for what had to be the longest fifteen seconds in the history of time.

  “Are you…okay?”

  Why isn’t he making excuses and running away?

  Oh. Right. Because, unlike you, he’s a nice person.

  Spencer grimaced and opened his mouth to answer. He’d meant to say that, yes, of course he was okay and then follow up with a no, of course he didn’t need any help, but thank you for asking. What came out instead, in what even deaf—and dead—Grandpa Harold would have recognized as a whine, was “I can’t reach my Lucky Charms.”

  It was only Spencer’s utter horror—and his ingrained need to watch disasters as they unfold in front of him—that kept him from closing his eyes in utter humiliation. Which was the only reason he saw the small, amused smile pulling at Tim’s lips before he managed to school his expression.

  “Do you want me to get them for you?”

  “Oh, fuck you,” Spencer said before he could think better of it. Thankfully, that seemed to be all the permission Tim needed to burst out laughing, which meant Spencer didn’t have time to feel bad before the indignation took over. “No, really, fuck you. When you’ve been trying to get the same box of cereal for twenty minutes, then you can laugh.”

  Of course, that only made Tim laugh harder.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Tim said, getting himself under control a split second before Spencer was about to forget everything good he’d done for Connor and sock him one right in the middle of the cereal aisle. “I don’t even know why I’m laughing so much.”

  Spencer sighed. “You’re laughing because I’m twenty-eight years old, and I can’t reach the top shelf.”

  Tim pressed his lips together for a suspiciously long moment before he answered. “Sorry,” he said again, sounding sincere. “I really can get it down for you if you want?”

  Spencer did his best to ignore the embarrassment he could feel burning his face and gestured at the shelf. Tim took his gesture as the permission it had been, and in less time than it took to say, “Magically delicious!” he had the Lucky Charms off the shelf and in Spencer’s cart.

  “Thanks,” Spencer muttered. “See you around.”

  He turned his cart and quickly made his escape.

  And was then completely thrown when he got barely two feet down the aisle before Tim called after him. “Hey, wait!”

  Spencer froze. This…was not in his mental script. Tim was supposed to be just as happy to end this encounter as Spencer. Instead, Spencer could hear him pushing his own cart closer until they were side by side.

  Spencer glanced up, and they fell into another awkward, stare-y silence.

  “Come here often?” Tim asked eventually. He winced, and Spencer mirrored the expression a moment later in sympathetic embarrassment before fully registering that he wasn’t the one making this weird.

  “Really?”

  “In my defense, I’m a little out of practice at talking to people above the drinking age.”

  Spencer’s first instinct, which was to ask, “So, you usually use cheesy dive-bar pickup lines on underage kids?” was, thankfully, easy to squash. Even better, Tim kept talking.

  “And I didn’t expect to see you here—” Tim paused. “—or ever again, actually.”

  Spencer felt a pang of…something at the implied rebuke. “Sorry,” he said, turning away. “If I knew you were gonna be here, I would have come tomorrow.”

  “What?” Tim a
sked. “No! That’s not what I—that wasn’t a good thing.”

  Spencer glanced back at Tim, who was staring at him with an expression so blatantly sincere it had to be something he’d practiced for use on distrustful kids.

  “You wanted to see me again?” Spencer asked.

  To his credit, Tim seemed like he knew there was no good way to answer without lying. “I don’t really like being avoided,” Tim said after a long pause. “Especially since Connor says you’re only doing it because you’re embarrassed.”

  Spencer, predictably, felt himself flush again.

  Sometimes, he really wished smacking kids around was still acceptable.

  And on a parenting scale from Andrea Yates to Mrs. Cleaver, that puts me a few notches above the Dursleys.

  “Please tell me you two don’t sit around talking about me all day.”

  He’d meant it partly as a joke and partly a way to change the subject, but Tim didn’t even take a breath before saying, “Among other things.”

  “Oh, good,” Spencer muttered. “I thought you were gonna say something ominous for a second.”

  Tim looked amused.

  “Okay then.” Spencer crossed his arms. “What do you talk about?”

  “Books and video games, mostly.”

  Spencer blinked. “Wait, can you even say that to me?”

  Now it was Tim’s turn to appear confused. “Say…what?”

  “Any of that! Isn’t it, like, illegal for you to tell me what you guys talk about?”

  “I’m not Connor’s therapist,” Tim said patiently. “I’m his friend. I can tell anyone what we talk about.”

  Possibilities sprung to life in Spencer’s mind.

  “So, you can find out—”